1/2
First of all, I have a family member who served in the Canadian Armed Forces. Second, I know others who’ve gone over to Iraq, et cetera, several people I knew well growing up. So I’d like to just say I have respect for those who choose to defend their countries. The smaller people who are the ones that actually go to war aren’t those making the big decisions – you can’t fault someone for wanting to be a patriot if they’re being just as misled by their government as us civilians. All that said, I’m really against some of the modern wars over the past 30 years America has involved themselves in. That’s no fault of the men fighting on the front lines. One such man is Chris Kyle, played here fabulously by Bradley Cooper, who is the most accomplished marksman, as far as I know, in the history of the American military. The guy served as a sniper during the Iraq invasion of 2003 onward. He is no doubt a tough soldier.

However, my problem with this film is not exactly with Kyle himself. The problem I have is mostly with the entire situation of the Iraq War, and some of the decisions made by the United States government during that period. My major issue is that here we’re asked to empathize with a man who has killed women and children – one of the early scenes shows Kyle making a split-second decision to snipe a little boy, who was given an explosive device to throw by his mother, and then just afterwards also killing her. I know a lot of people will make the argument that the kid would have killed American soldiers – absolutely, he would have. On the other hand, should Iraq have been invaded? Was it invaded for the right reasons? I’m not one of those people who is out preaching that the war was started for oil, I’m just saying – a foreign government sends troops into a strange place, people are threatened, everyone there is assumed to be a villain. Are we to expect people aren’t going to say “get the fuck out” and start fighting? Maybe the woman was a part of a terrorist group. Perhaps. We’ll never know, and that’s for sure.Bradley Cooper does a great job with this role. I don’t have any problem whatsoever with his performance. Particularly, his Southern accent was absolutely flawless, to my mind. He did excellent work playing Kyle physically and vocally, as well as in the way the man was, no doubt, highly intense. I don’t have any problem with the acting in this movie. However, aside from Kyle there aren’t many characters with much room to breathe. I know it’s centered on him, clearly, but I mean a lot of this story is supposed to be about how Kyle was affected by the war, what he did over there, et cetera. We really don’t get to see enough of anyone else, from Kyle’s wife to his brothers-in-arms, to really latch onto any other character development or anything which gives us enough of an idea about the pathology of his trajectory. There are a few typical scenes with Kyle and his wife, one in the hospital as Kyle visits an injured soldier, and other than that it’s pretty much the Cooper Show. It’s a fun show, just not enough to justify the messages Clint Eastwood was shambling at with this movie.This brings me to my final point about American Sniper. I’ve read lots about the Iraq War, in particular a really great book called Ghost Wars, which was a great dose of history tackling everything from the invasion of Iraq back to the 1950s and 60s, and everything in between. I am by no means an expert. No more than the regular person interested in history, war history in particular, and a love of books/reading. So, what I’m saying is, I realize there are plenty of situations where seemingly normal people in foreign countries might later reveal themselves to be enemies – however, Eastwood goes way too hard headed at this angle. It seems like Eastwood decided “I’m not going to show that there are two sides to these situations” then proceeded to put scene after scene in to really nail the point home. Every Iraqi is an enemy – this is his message. Even one scene where Kyle sees a young boy about to pick up an RPG launcher, after the man holding it takes a bullet from the American Sniper himself – Kyle is talking to himself, begging the little boy not to pick the thing up – finally when the boy opts to drop it, the sniper sighs heavily in relief. Even here Eastwood is almost saying “well the kid wanted to shoot and kill some Americans… he just couldn’t lift the damn thing!” I mean, it’s a bit ridiculous at a certain point. Even the nice family who take Kyle and his team of soldiers in for a nice dinner, sat around the family table – they turn out to be, gasp, insurgents or belligerents, or whatever the U.S Army/media decide to call them these days. I just found it really preposterous. I know that even Kyle in his book apparently says some fairly tough minded things about the people in Iraq, even going so far as to admit to looting houses after people fled them in Fallujah, but Eastwood could’ve at least tried to look as if he were aiming to show two sides of a disturbingly murky part of American war history. To me, it was just nonsense. Constant reiteration of “every Iraqi is a possible terrorist.” Film version of ignorant patriotism – there is a way to be patriotic without looking foolish.I’ll give this a 0.5 out of 5 stars only because I really enjoyed Bradley Cooper’s portrayal of Chris Kyle – regardless if I admire the man as a person or not. I know a lot of Americans probably don’t want to hear this sort of review about one of their heroes. I am in no way trying to disrespect people who serve in the military. Once again, as I said in the beginning, I do have a great respect for those who give up their lives, their safety, their comfort to defend the country they call home. Even if their government is sending them on a wild goose chase – I admire anyone willing to walk into the danger zones of a country foreign to them. But this movie is just Clint Eastwood’s Republican love song, honestly. I used to really love him, both as an actor and director (one of my all-time favourites is actually Mystic River plus a ton of his older acting performances). Nowadays I feel like Eastwood is just sinking into mediocrity. Letting his political views get in the way of good film making. This is just too much of a heavy handed political movie. I know it’s about a very political topic when it comes down to it, but above all it’s meant to be a character study of Chris Kyle. I didn’t get enough of what the film should have been. Instead, it’s a mix of a decent war movie, and a lot of ignorant perspective on the Iraqi war and the Iraqi people. Further than that, there’s no questioning of Kyle’s legacy whatsoever. I’m not saying I want this guy dragged into the mud – not at all. His family would want his memory preserved. But still, there are various accounts Kyle has talked about which are not verified. In this film you basically get a love letter to America and Kyle, without any inward reflection, though, it presents itself in a light many believe does show some sort of reflection. I don’t see it. Plus, the movie could’ve easily had a half hour or so chopped out with no difference made – too long for the purpose it attempted to serve. Many other, far superior, war movies at this length and less that impressed me more than this one. I don’t recommend this. See it only to admire Cooper’s work ethic and ability as a great actor, which I do believe. One of my least favourites from 2014. Clint Eastwood needs to reevaluate his dedication to film making, and whether or not it’s solely based on making money while telling lies. This was a bad movie. There are a lot of great war films, such as even the recent David Ayer film Fury, however, American Sniper will never ever be close to that or any other excellent movie centered on war.

Father Gore is first and foremost a passionate lover of film— especially horror. He's also a PhD candidate at Memorial University of Newfoundland with a concentration in postmodern critical theory. He wrote for Film Inquiry frequently during 2016-17, and is currently contributing to Scriptophobic in a column called Serial Killer Celluloid focusing on film adaptations about real life murderers. As of September 2018, Father Gore is an official member of the Online Film Critics Society, and as of April 2019 he's currently listed as a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic. He has covered major film festivals such as Fantasia Festival and Fantastic Fest. During September 2019, Father Son Holy Gore will be one of several media outlets helping to present Randfilmfest in Germany.